Nostalgia & History > Cincinnati Railroads, L&N, 1977

Louisville & Nashville remained a favorite of mine, particularly the Cincy-Louisville Short Line.

1. In May U25B #1612 climbs up from the Ohio River bottomlands towards the C&O bridge crossing the river, bound for L&N's mammouth DeCoursey Yard in Latonia, Kentucky.

2. I devoted 14 May to working the Short Line. I chased a coal train south out of DeCoursey. I shot it at Walton but at Vernon it was stabbed for a northbound. Note the Canadian National units. L&N had a shortage of motive power in the spring/summer of '77.

3. After a short wait, the northbound showed up behind U25B #2500. The train is on a broad 'S' curve and will soon be twisting back on the engineer's side. My slide log margin notes say "loud squeal!" 14 May

4. With the northbound cleared, the southbound coal train departed the siding at Vernon with SD40 #1247 on the point.

5. I had hoped to pace the coal train south, but lost it somewhere in the wilds and twisting local roads of northern Kentucky. I finally "found" it again at Glencoe, but it had already passed the grade crossing, and gone into the siding. Sitting on the main was another northbound, behind U28C #1533. It must have been there for a while. When it finally got the signal, it looked like a steam locomotive as it started up. Note the signals. There's another one of those Short Line curves just ahead.

6. Heading west towards California and my next duty station, I elected to work the L&N near the Tennessee border before turning towards the Mississippi River. On 23 May I lensed GP38-2 #4074 passing a southbound coal train at Guthrie, Kentucky.

The Ditch is in the background, so named because it was once the path of the Eastern end of the Whitewater canal. The engines are heading to MD Cabin (behind the photographer, where the L&N track merged onto the track of the C&O Bridge. The L&N used to interchange with the C&O on the bridge itself, with a 'shelf' cantilever off the side of the bridge that held 3-4 tracks.

Wow, that was worth a year's subscription!! Just pure gold--reminds me of being a kid here in Georgia. As for the "SP-ness" of the SD40-2, L&N had always been a devotee of Gyralights, but it is worth noting that when that unit was delivered, an SP-SCL merger was thought by many to be a foregone conclusion. The flood of SP U boats that showed up in 1978 made it seem like the merger had happened, even though SP alum Richard Spence emptied SP's deadlines to alleviate L&N's severe power shortage.